So it's now official, President Obama won his battle to keep his BlackBerry. For some, this is cause for celebration: an indication that we have the first truly tech-savvy world leader, one that recognises the importance of technology.

Personally, I'm not sure I do see it as recognition of IT's value. To my eyes it looks more like another case of the top dog insisting they get their choice of device, regardless of what the tech team think.

Analyst firm Gartner describes the impact this has on IT – it calls it providing concierge support, and is frequently the most time-consuming and costly support activity undertaken.

Of course it's not just US presidents that are afforded this level of service: just look at the number of chief executives that suddenly decided that what they really needed was an iPhone. Sure, it's a sleek and lovely music player/phone, but a business device? Surely not.

Likewise with Obama and his BlackBerry obsession. There seemed to be no shortage of advisors counselling him against keeping his BlackBerry: it was thought to be a potential security risk; there were concerns that his emails would end up as public records, thereby exposing things that were supposed to be secret.

But thanks to his insistence on keeping the device, his security team have had to introduce what's been called "a super-encryption package", and the President has agreed to only use it for "routine and personal messages".

And that for me neatly encapsulates what I don't like about the episode. The point of having a BlackBerry – or any other push-enabled PDA – is so that executives have instant access to mission-critical information.

Of all the criticisms levelled at President Obama's 43 predecessors, lacking access to critical information was pretty far down the list. There are whole entourages of flunkeys, advisors and White House staffers whose job is to keep the President informed of the big issues.

Furthermore, if you're using a BlackBerry for simply accessing "routine and personal messages", then it's become a vanity object.

And it's a vanity object that his IT support will have had to bend over backwards to support. Ok, I'm not sure what's involved in building a "super-encryption package" – and I'm not sure the US secret service is telling – but it's a fairly safe bet that it involved one or two headaches for the IT team.

I don't suppose it will end there – it never does when IT has to deliver concierge support. President Obama hasn't had an email come in for the last five minutes? He'd better get right on that phone to IT and make sure the email system hasn't crashed.